This show was on May 17th, 2014
| 15 people watched

Improvisation in Classical Music and Poetry

This show was on Aug 31st, 2013
| 15 people watched

I was really grateful that there was the option of attending a live broadcast. I wouldn't have been able to make it over to Berkeley, and I really appreciated the opportunity to attend in this manner. I was watching over a MacBook Pro with Safari- with headphones on the sound only came through one ear. Even if it was a mono broadcast it would have been good if the sound had routed to both earphones. Thank you so very much!

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Bio

Persian classical music is based on improvisation and composition, and it is interwoven with Persian poetry. The repertoire of this music consists of several hundred short melodic movements called gusheh. Each gusheh has a unique character, feeling, and history to it,...
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Persian classical music is based on improvisation and composition, and it is interwoven with Persian poetry. The repertoire of this music consists of several hundred short melodic movements called gusheh. Each gusheh has a unique character, feeling, and history to it, which has been passed on orally from generation to generation. In A Musical Journey through Iran, Taghi Amjadi on vocals, Sina Dehghani on tonbak, and Amir Nojan on setar aim to use the universal language of music to communicate and share the feelings of these melodies with the Freight audience.

Brief biography of Musicians:

TAGHI AMJADI started singing at the age of seven and began performing at the age fourteen in Iran. He was seventeen, when he started studying the highly ornate and rigorous Persian vocal style with ostad Esmail Mehrtaash, a prominent Persian master musician of Iran. This was Amjadi’s initiation in the fine nuances of traditional singing repertoire which help him later to study on his own, when he left Iran in 1977.
In early 1980’s, Amjadi started studying with ostad Mahmoud Zofonoun - one of the living master musicians of Iran who lives in the Bay Area. Later he had the opportunity to continue his studies in the US with two of the world class Iranian classical music virtuosos such as Mohammad R. Shajarian - considered the most prominent Iranian singer of all time, and Mohammad R. Lotfi, a great master of playing Tar. Studying with these master musicians broaden his view about the ancient art of Persian vocal music. Amjadi’s admiration for the singing style of Shajarian encouraged him to study his singing style, and the style of his predecessors.

Amjadi is a co-founder of Barbod ensemble, has been teaching singing, and performing with many different musicians and music groups in the Bay Area since1980. He currently teaches classical Persian singing At Shiraz Academy of Art and Culture in San Jose. Amjadi also holds a PhD in Psychology and works as a clinician at San Francisco State University.
AMIR NOJAN was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1980. He is a Persian classical musician best known for his skills at playing Setar, a Persian lute. He is also known for his vast knowledge of Persian traditional/classical repertoire known as "Radif". He started studying the traditional Persian music at the age of twelve and over the years he has benefited from the teachings of great masters of Persian music such as Ustad Dariush Talaei, Ustad Jalal Zolfonoon and Ustad Mohammad-Reza Lotfi.
While still in Iran, he established and directed “Nava Ensemble" in 1998 and has continued that work in the U.S. Amir has held many concerts in Iran, Europe and the U.S. as a composer, soloist, improviser and ensemble player. Amir Nojan has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Alim Qasimov and Shahram Nazeri at Stanford University, where in December 2011; he also gave a lecture on “The History of Setar and its significant role in the Iranian classical music.”
In July 2012, Amir Nojan founded the first professional academy for the teaching of Persian music and arts named "Shiraz Arts Academy" in Northern California (San Jose). Shiraz Arts Academy is an educational institution specialized in the study and training of music and arts, where talented students work with the distinguished instructors who are leading artists and educators in their own fields.
SINA DEHGHANI has been playing Persian ancient percussions, tonbak and daf, since age fourteen. He has studied with several prominent Persian master percussionists. For four years he studied with Bahram Dehghani and then with Majid Hesabi. In the past six years he has continued his study with Navid Afghi. In recent years he continued his study of daf (the ancient Persian hand drum) with one of the most prominent daf player of Iran, Master Bijan Kamkar, and later continued his study with master Mas’od Habibi. Sina has taught music and has played wildly in Iran with several different ensembles, including Daf Zanan Delahor. He is a new immigrant, resides in Sacramento, and currently teaches Persian percussions at Shiraz Academy of Art and culture.